As a result, the search for Flight MH370 has been temporarily suspended until the seas abate and weather conditions improve.

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AMSA said a Royal Australian Navy warship that had been sent to the area on Monday night to try to recover debris spotted by an Australian aircraft earlier in the day had left the area.

"Due to rough seas, HMAS Success departed the search area early this morning and is now in transit south of the search area until seas abate," AMSA said in a statement.

Grieving Chinese relatives of passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 leave after being told of their deaths at the Metro Park Lido Hotel in Beijing. Photo: AFP

"AMSA has undertaken a risk assessment and determined that the current weather conditions would make any air and sea search activities hazardous and pose a risk to crew. Therefore, AMSA has suspended all sea and air search operations for today due to these weather conditions."

The Bureau of Meteorology has advised AMSA that weather conditions should improve in the search area on Tuesday evening and over the next few days.

The devastating announcement overnight that Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 had crashed into the Indian Ocean, killing all 239 people on board, was the culmination of a dramatic day of searching off the south-west coast of Australia.

At about 9am on Monday two Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft took off from Perth's RAAF Pearce base, in the first Chinese air search operation since two of its military aircraft arrived in Perth on Saturday.

The planes were bound for the search zone in the southern Indian Ocean, about 2500 kilometres south-west of Perth, and would have arrived in the area at about 1pm. The planes have the capacity to search for about two hours before heading back to base.

One of the planes had completed its search mission and was returning to Perth when the crew reported spotting "suspicious objects" floating in the water. These included items that were "white and rectangular" and were scattered over an area of a "few kilometres", according to official news agency Xinhua.

The crew reported the co-ordinates to the Australian command centre as well as to the Chinese icebreaker Xuelong, which was en route to the search area and was due to arrive early on Tuesday morning.

Later on Monday, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said a US Navy P-8 Poseidon, the most advanced search aircraft in the world, was sent to the coordinates and was unable to find the objects.

‘‘Drift modelling was undertaken on the sighting. The P-8 was unable to relocate the reported objects,’’ an AMSA spokeswoman said in an emailed response to Reuters.

But the crew of an Australian aircraft was about to report a similar sighting in a different section of the search area.

At about 2.45pm on Monday, the crew of a Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion aircraft spotted several new objects, separate to the objects spotted by a Chinese aircraft.

The P-3 Orion’s captain Flight Lieutenant Josh Williams said the crew dropped flares onto the ocean as a marker for other search crews aboard aircraft and ships.

"The first object was rectangular, slightly below the ocean, the second object was circular, also slightly below the ocean," he said.

"We came across a cylindrical object that was 2m long about 30cm across, and we came across another item that was also cylindrical and shaped in a rough fish hook."

On Monday night, Prime Minister Tony Abbott told parliament of the sighting. He said he did not know if the objects were from the Malaysia Airlines MH370 flight, but recovery efforts continued.

"We don't know whether any of these objects are from MH370, they could be flotsam, nevertheless we are hopeful we can recover these objects and that will take us a step closer to resolving this tragic mystery,'' he said.

But hopes that the items could be recovered on Monday night were dashed when a ship dispatched to recover the debris sighted by the Australian aircraft found nothing.

HMAS Success, a Royal Australian Navy warship, arrived at the location about about 7pm, however an AMSA spokesman told Fairfax Media the HMAS Success had spotted nothing as of 11:30pm AEDT.

The search for debris was called off for the night, and will resume at first light on Tuesday.

But families and friends of those on board the missing flight were about to receive the the most agonising news imaginable: that everyone on board MH370 was believed to have died.

Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak held a briefing at 10pm in Kuala Lumpur (1am Australian eastern daylight time) during which he announced that MH370 crashed into a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean, killing all 239 people on board.

"It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean,” he said, fighting back tears.

Confirmation the Boeing 777, one of the world’s most sophisticated airliners, crashed into the sea came from Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch which had been provided information from the London-based satellite company Inmarsat.

According to the analysis the plane flew for more than seven hours after it had turned back from its scheduled flight path over the South China Sea.

Officials said it was likely the plane ran out of fuel before crashing.